Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie

Alright, part 2 of my suggestions for a new computer will focus on some neat utilities available for use so let’s hop right in. If you would like to read part one, head over here please.

These apps and utilities are all free with the exception of Saft.

Drop Box App: Store, Share, and Sync Your Files online

Basically, If you have a laptop, you probably have a desktop or another computer you use somewhere else as well. These applications can help you from having to haul around little jump drives.

Drop Box works by creating a folder on your computer that syncs to Drop Box online, so whatever you add to the box automatically syncs with any other computer you have added a drop box to, or you can use the online site to download a view files. You can share files in you drop box with individuals, and you get up to 2 GBs of space, with the option to add more for a fee.

Features:

• No Complicated interfaces to learn
• Runs in the background
• Syncs automatically
• Easy Sharing

NetNewsWire – The Best Feed Reader for a Mac

Hands down, the best feed reader app out there. I love this app and all my feeds when on my Mac are read through this. I plan on doing a little video demo later, but if you’re on a Mac, you definitely should check out this feed reader. It’s the best out there.

Another nice feature about this free app is it’s integration with newsgator.com. While I don’t normally read feeds at newsgator.com, with the account I have, my feeds are automatically synced so that if I check off a feed as read online, or on NetNewswire, I never to have read it again, because it will be marked as read every where I read my feeds. It even syncs with FeedDemon, which I sometimes use when I’m on my Windows computer at work. If I mark it as read at work, it will be marked as read when I come home on my Mac. Great syncing and offline support. Here are a few other features of NetNewsWire:

• UI update with new toolbar icons.
• Performance and memory enhancements including an improved Combined View which uses multiple pages to display long lists of items.
• HTML Archive feature – saves news items as HTML files on disk. These files are compatible with any web browser.
• Desktop integration – Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, Growl, Twitterrific and more.
• Great new look – improved Combined View, feed “cover art”, full-screen mode, and tabs with thumbnails and animations.
• Synchronized clippings – read your saved articles from the web or another NewsGator reader.
• Microformat detection for contacts and calendar events.
• Automatic checking for newer versions of the software.
• Automatic download of podcasts and transfer to iTunes.
• Smart lists to aggregate news from your feeds based on criteria.

NetNewsWire is also available for the iphone and ipod touch.

Quicksilver – Act Without Doing

A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.

It’s a bit hard to describe quicksilver at first, but the best way to think about it is to consider it a bit like an app launcher. It’s more than that, but that’s the gateway drug into using Quicksilver. The idea is to increase productivity and speed up the process. Download it, and try it for starting apps, then as you get the hang of it other uses will make sense and appear. You can always email me or comment with questions.

Learn more about quicksilver by visiting What is Quicksilver

Chax – An iChat enhancement

Chax is a collection of minor modifications and additions that make using Apple’s iChat more enjoyable.

Features

• Unified contact list shows all contacts from all accounts in one window
• Growl notifications for new messages and users changing status
• Automatically resize the contact list to fit the number of visible users
• Built-in log viewer
• Activity log that displays your contacts’ status changes
• Auto-accept file transfers, AV chats, and screen sharing requests
• Toggle text status visibility of users
• Always on top option for contact list, message windows and AV chats
• Set font of names, status messages, and group separators
• Option to auto-accept text chats, skipping new message notification window
• Show status changes directly in the message window
• Additional unread message notifications in the Dock
• Automatically go away when the screensaver activates
• Properly use ICQ accounts without sending text formatting in messages

Growl – System-wide Notifications

Growl lets Mac OS X applications unintrusively tell you when things happen. It’s a systemwide notification system. Many applications can take advantage of it. For example, if you use ichat with growl, whenever someone IMs you, you get a growl notification that pops up letting you know what that individual said. If you click on the growl notification, you’ll be taken directly to IM window for that individual to continue the conversation. There are many applications that support Growl.

Definitely a must have for anyone running OS X. Fore more information visit Growl’s info page.

Saft – a Safari Browser enhancer

Saft is a Safari must have, despite the cost small cost. I’ve used it so much and it’s such an integral part of Safari that I don’t even realize it until I sit on someone else’s computer and they don’t have Saft themselves. Definitely check it out. A demo is available.

Here are a few features of the many that Saft offers:

Features:

• Always open browser window in tab
• Auto hide Downloads window
• Auto save and restore opened browser windows at quitting and start
• Block animation
• Block HTML refreshing in front-most browser
• Block images and plugins
• Bookmark search
• Bookmark this group of tabs
• Consolidate browser windows
• Control-1 to 9 to popup bookmark menu or open bookmark
• Control-drag page
• Crash protection
• Customizable HTTP timeout
• Customized Google search field
• Do not allow scripts to bring tab to front
• Drag tab buttons to add the URL string to other applications
• Full-screen browsing
• Growl support

Twitterific – A Twitter Client

If you’re not on twitter, you probably won’t appreciate this app too much, but you should definitely consider checking twitter out and maybe even following me on it.

Twitterific is a twitter client made by Icon Factory (makers of many other great Mac apps) that interacts with twitter so that you can send and receive tweets, @replies, direct messages without having to have them come to your phone and while you’re sitting at your computer. Twitterific also pulls the last 100 (beta version) or so tweets that were submitted while you were logged out so that you can also catch up on any replies or tweets you may have missed. While purchasing twitterific is an option, you can download it and use it for free and just have to see a few small adverts (displayed once per hour) in your tweet stream. Very non intrusive ads for a great program.

Twitterific is also available for the ipod touch and iphone.

Features:

• Clean, concise UI with small desktop footprint
• Supports multiple Twitter accounts
• Auto refreshing at user defined intervals
• Replies and direct messages are displayed inline
• Number of unread tweets shown in the Dock
• Delete tweets from Twitter quickly and easily
• Auto show / hide when new tweets arrive
• Control over window layering and priority
• Single click access to user profile pages
• Switch between friend and public tweets easily
• Keyboard shortcuts for list navigation and more
• Control Twitterrific with AppleScript
• Audio notification for new tweets
• Hotkey to show / hide tweets

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